One Dead Sea Scroll Deciphered; is Commentary on Genesis

Faculty members of the Hebrew University who have unrolled and deciphered the Dead Sea scroll, known as the “Book of Lemach,” have found it to be a paraphrase and a commentary of the Biblical Book of Genesis, Dr. Benjamin Mazar, archaeologist and president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, declared here at a press conference.

Study continues on the scroll, which is written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and more information about it will be published after it has been further examined in the light of existing knowledge of Biblical literature. Research on the scroll, one of seven now in the possession of the University as a national treasure of Israel and one of four recently returned from the U.S., has been carried out by Dr. Nahum Avigad and Dr. Yigal Yadin, son of the late Prof. Eleazer Sukenik, who devoted many years to the study of the scrolls.